It's apple season in our garden. We've been fortunate to inherit some wonderfully gnarled old apple trees and beautifully trained espalier apples from the 1930s, which are all still very productive. They also make the perfect background for quilt photos - which probably didn't cross anyone's mind when they were planted - as the rough bark grips on to quilt battens and the espalier wires to fabric clips.
I'll be sharing something special next month that I really wanted to photograph in the orchard last spring, but in the meantime I've mocked up two quilts which seem particularly at home in an autumn orchard, using Tilda's gorgeous new Hometown fabric.
The first is Mr McGregor's Garden, a smaller quilt at 36" x 50" made with Fat Quarters and inspired by traditional samplers (you can read more about it here). It makes a wonderful wall hanging for any season, depending on the fabric you choose. And I know several people who've made it for new babies, which makes me so happy! I chose the rich red and blue Hometown colourway, adding the green Neighbourhood blender print - possibly my favourite from the whole collection - for the hedges and topiary.
You can find a Paper pattern here, a PDF here and, most exciting of all, a wonderful kit* for pre-order from the lovely Richla at Got Kwilts here.
And of course, I just had to recolour the Kitchen Garden Sampler. The colouring in Hometown reminded me so much of an older Tilda collection called Bird Pond which I used to make my original quilt. Kitchen Garden uses a Fat Eighth bundle of both prints and blenders which are combined with Tilda solids in Dove and Soft Teal, along with the Paint Dots blender in warm grey for the vegetable beds.
Richla has also put together a fabulous pre-order kit* for this one, here, and you can find the Pattern Book here (or here if you're in North America) and the PDF here.
Now do excuse me, I'm off to pick an apple straight from the espalier to have with my lunch,
Nicola xx
* Please note that the kit does not include the pattern.